Drinking vessels with independent agitators have been designed for mixing powdered solids, such as protein powders or diet supplements, with liquids. Typically, these designs and methods are used in the preparation of consumable liquids formulated to support health or enhance athletic performance The powders/solids are typically placed inside the bottle or other drinking vessel with a liquid (often milk, water, or other consumable substance) and the bottle or other vessel is shaken. The agitator assists in evenly dispersing and blending the solid particles with the liquid.
However, because many agitators are insufficiently massive and/or sub-optimally shaped, the powdered solids will clump, float on the surface, adhere to the walls, or remain on the bottom of the vessel instead of being dispersed and evenly blended. The mass of the agitator is often not adequate to allow it to travel effectively through the liquid solution/suspension to produce a homogenous blending of the powder—a desired property of powder-containing drinking vessels as opposed to aerosol cans which may only require small agitators mixing liquids and only small particulates. Agitators currently used for mixing consumable liquids are often formed of bent wire or molded plastic and have surfaces that can retain particles and powder clumps and can be difficult to clean. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,379,032 shows a wire-frame, flow-through agitator. See also U.S. D664,392 teaching a mixing element of the wire-type, formed conically. In some cases, the agitator element is integrated into the bottle design and thus further complicates cleaning. See U.S. Pat. No. 7,441,941 describing a shaker with attached, reciprocating agitator.
Additionally, the irregular forms of current agitators often prevent them from being placed easily on a surface for cleaning/drying, as a result rolling across or falling off of a table or the cleaning surface. Current methods for mixing consumable liquids, moreover, do not feature vessels whose specific interior surface features work with the agitator in a complementary fashion to blend the liquid and powder. As a result, the interaction of the agitator, liquid-powder mix and the inner surfaces of the drinking vessel is not optimized for producing a homogeneous mixture. In addition, the interior surfaces of current drinking vessels are often difficult to clean, particularly the bottom edge between the inner base plane and the walls, due to the creation of a small surface by the sharp angle here where debris can be lodged or trapped.
There is a need then for a combination agitator and drinking vessel that adequately blends powdered consumables using optimally sized and shaped components as further described.